Analysis of The Little Piou-Piou
Robert William Service 1874 – 1958
(The French "Tommy").
Oh, some of us lolled in the chateau,
And some of us slinked in the slum;
But now we are here with a song and a cheer
To serve at the sign of the drum.
They put us in trousers of scarlet,
In big sloppy ulsters of blue;
In boots that are flat, a box of a hat,
And they call us the little piou-piou.
Piou-piou.
The laughing and quaffing piou-piou,
The swinging and singing piou-piou;
And so with a rattle we march to the battle,
The weary but cheery piou-piou.
Encore un petit verre de vin,
Pour nous mettre en route;
Encore un petit verre de vin
Pour nous mettre en train.
They drive us head-on for the slaughter;
We haven't got much of a chance;
The issue looks bad, but we're awfully glad
To battle and die for La France.
For some must be killed, that is certain;
There's only one's duty to do;
So we leap to the fray in the glorious way
They expect of the little piou-piou.
En avant!
The way of the gallant piou-piou,
The dashing and smashing piou-piou;
The way grim and gory that leads us to glory
Is the way of the little piou-piou.
Allons, enfants de la Patrie,
Le jour de gloire est arrivé.
To-day you would scarce recognise us,
Such veterans war-wise are we;
So grimy and hard, so calloused and scarred,
So "crummy", yet gay as can be.
We've finished with trousers of scarlet,
They're giving us breeches of blue,
With a helmet instead of a cap on our head, -
Yet still we're the little piou-piou.
Nous les aurons!
The jesting, unresting piou-piou;
The cheering, unfearing piou-piou;
The keep-your-head-level and fight-like-the-devil;
The dying, defying piou-piou.
à la bayonette! Jusqu'a la mort!
Sonnez la charge, clairons!
Scheme | a xbxbcdxeeeefe GxGx xhxhxdxex eeae ax xaxacdxeh eefe xh |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 0110 111110001 01111001 11111101001 11101101 111010110 0110111 0111101101 011101011 11 0100111 01001011 011010111010 01011011 1110111 11111 1110111 11111 111111010 11011101 0101111101 11001111 111111110 11011011 111101001001 101101011 101 01101011 01001011 011010111110 101101011 1111100 0111011 1111111 11001111 1100111001 11011111 110110110 1101111 1010011011101 11101011 111 01111 010111 011110011010 01001011 11111 1111 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 1,709 |
Words | 302 |
Sentences | 19 |
Stanzas | 9 |
Stanza Lengths | 1, 13, 4, 9, 4, 2, 9, 4, 2 |
Lines Amount | 48 |
Letters per line (avg) | 26 |
Words per line (avg) | 6 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 140 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 33 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 1:33 min read
- 72 Views
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"The Little Piou-Piou" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 5 May 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/32575/the-little-piou-piou>.
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